Loded Diper: In 4 Parts
by ShadowGraves097
Summary: Rodrick Heffley's main dream in life is to have success with his rock band - Loded Diper. Could this be the year they get somewhere? Also Appearing: Greg and his Middle School trials. Rated T for occasional swearing.
1. Part 1: Bland Beginnings

**1**

The Heffleys were the average family – but with a twist. While most families have only two children, the Heffleys had three, and while typically you'll see a boy and a girl, the Heffleys had a perfect match with three boys.

Most average parents are ordinary folks whom you'll forget the minute they leave your sight. And while Mrs. Heffley was a fairly normal mom, she definitely wasn't forgettable, with her penchant for family magazines and her fondness for turning the tiniest of insignifigances into "teachable moments." And she was constantly embarrassing her sons by putting them into her Parenting Advice newspaper column, "Susan's Musings."  
Mr. Heffley was just quirky, plain and simple, with three great loves in life: any and all dogs, a general's army of figurines that he was building in the basement, and getting his boys to act with aplomb and strength, mainly because he was sick of hearing Mr. Warren, the neighbor, brag about _his _boys, who were athletic, well-behaved, all-American lads who any father would be proud to call his own.

But sometimes, when his older two boys were really driving him nuts, he hoped hearing about how well the Warren kids were doing would motivate them to do better themselves. For you see, like any Dad, Mr. Heffley wanted the best for his sons. He wanted them to be successful, to go further and live better lives than he could ever dream of. But things didn't look too promising, at least not at the moment.

Manny Heffley was the youngest son at just three years old, and for his age he was quite smart, able to play all sorts of pranks and tricks and generally wreak havoc, then hiding away from punishment by screaming to his mother: "I'm onwy thwee!" This insidious remark was supposed to prove that he was incapable of deliberately causing trouble, and while Susan Heffley believed it every time, it made the other Heffley boys roll their eyes in disgust.

Greg Heffley was the middle boy. He carried with him the usual middle child hang-ups: he was too old to be adorable and treated like a little child, but too young to be taken seriously; he was trying hard to be cool and fit in when he wasn't sure what either of those things even meant, and he was - at least in his mind - tortured relentlessly by an older brother (TERRORIZED was more the word here), and constantly hassled by the antics of his little brother.

Greg was a small, very lean boy, with deeply sloped shoulders and a tired, lackadaisical posture that made him look both very wimpy and kind of insolent at the same time. His facial expression was nearly always one of mild displeasure, extreme disgust, or mild shock. Rarely did he smile or register any emotions of joy. Why? Well, in the words of Greg himself: "My life is just too hard." But he doesn't say this in a whiny voice, the kind that's trying to make you feel sorry for him. His tone is more nonchalant, almost lofty, as if everyone's life is hard, but his is the absolute hardest – and it's a big deal because he knows someday school yearbooks are going to have a "Kid with the Hardest Life" section, and he wants to make it clear right now that he's the only one who deserves it.

This, in a nutshell, illustrates the personality of Greg Heffley, which is, as he wrote in his diary – JOURNAL: "I'm a perfectly nice, likable kid whose only fault is being stuck in middle school with a bunch of morons."

Rodrick Heffley was, of course, the eldest. He was nearly 15, but looked much older, being tall and broad for his age. Not too long ago, he'd been an average young teen, relatively small and puny – something like Greg was now. But then, about a week after his 14th birthday, he'd had an immense growth spurt that sent him taller than most of the freshmen in his high school and Mr. Heffley himself. Rodrick easily passed as a senior every once in a while, when it was convenient, and he was sometimes kind of drunk with the power and intimidation his new height and strength gave him, especially when it came to picking on Greg.

But, at least in Mr. Heffley's eyes, most of Rodrick's physical gifts were entirely wasted. He was constantly telling Rodrick he ought to go in for sports - "You'd be a shoo-in for basketball," was his standard phrase – but Rodrick was far too lazy. He had no ambitions when it came to school or academics or special activities. Through the years, he'd devised all kinds of tricks to get out of doing homework and getting extra credit without working for it. It wasn't that Rodrick lacked smarts. He had a strangely high IQ, and on rare occasions, showed himself to be quite brilliant. But whenever he did, it was always by accident. He never wanted to be _seen _as smart; otherwise, people would start expecting him to do all the things that he'd convinced them he wasn't smart enough to – something he DEFINITELY didn't want to happen.

All he really cared about in life was his band: LÖDED DIPER.

* * *

Hi there! This is ShadowGraves097. Feel free to Read and Review, and let me know if you'd like to see more of this story.

ALSO, I do not own any of these characters. They are the property of Jeff Kinney. All I own is my plot.


	2. Chapter 2

Rodrick had formed Loded Diper when he was 13. For almost a year, it was just him. He drew flyers and acted like it was a real band, but it wasn't until he managed to get Ben Anderson, the kid who lived two blocks down, interested.

Ben was pretty much the resident punk rock boy, with tell-tale spiky hair and army boots - the kind of kid that all the "respectable" parents told _their _kids to stay away from. Naturally, this made him a magnet for Rodrick.

As it turned out, Ben wasn't actually that hardcore - he was more just stupid, acting like a drugged-up moron half the time. But he was a nice enough guy, and he could certainly play guitar. He also had the kind of abrasive, in-your-face voice that was perfect for Loded Diper, so Rodrick threw him in the band after just one day.

Ben brought in a friend of his - a blond boy named Harley. Harley had a depressed, pouty face that made him look like a big loser, and his large glasses, bland clothing, and his tendency to wear cheap sandals instead of sneakers didn't help his case any. But Rodrick didn't care about the way he looked; the dude was a decent bassist and no one else was around, so he got in the band, too.

Rodrick was the drummer, and hands down he was the best musician - which isn't saying much considering the competition. He also wrote all the songs, which had names like "Devil's Diaper," "Exploded Diaper," "Too Much Snot," "Sugar In The Toilet," and "I Died On The Cranium Shaker."

Rodrick called them instant classics, but not everyone agreed with him. His father covered his ears as if his life depended on it whenever Loded Diper had rehearsals, and the neighbors were always shouting: "TURN IT DOWN!"

But when it came to his band, Rodrick couldn't be deterred. His father could make noises of disapproval, the neighbors could shout 'til they were blue in the face, the cops could bang on the door saying they were making a disturbance - none of it mattered. Like a zombie, Loded Diper just kept rising from the dead.

Right now, they were in the midst of completing what Rodrick said would be a killer first album, and they were searching for the kind of big money they'd need to book studio time. But no one could adequately save his allowance, and you couldn't just ask your father for two grand.

It looked like they might actually have to - gasp - get WORK, at least for a week or two.


	3. Chapter 3

It was a typical Monday morning. Mrs. Heffley had made her famous sky-high pancakes, since they were the only way to get all the Heffley men around the breakfast table.

Frank was reading the newspaper, and as usual, he and Greg were shaking their heads at the "Li'l Cutie" comic, which got lamer and lamer each day but was showing no signs of getting kicked off.

"Just look at this," groaned Frank. _Daddy, why does a cat go 'mew'? Isn't that for cows?_

Greg rolled his eyes. "So funny."

Mrs. Heffley shook her head. "'Why are you always talking badly about that comic?" she said, bringing in another huge stack of pancakes. "I think it's far better than some of the others - it's not so offensive or inappropriate."

Greg and his father shared a look. If there was one thing they could agree on, it was that Li'l Cutie was definitely the worst comic in the history of anything ever. And if there was a second thing they agreed on, it was that Mrs. Heffley knew nothing about comics period. She'd laugh at a droll knock-knock joke repeated 50 times, for Christ's sake, what does that tell you?

Rodrick leaned forward in his chair, stuffing his face with pancakes and eggs like there was no tomorrow, syrup spilling down his chin.

"Save some for us, Rodrick," Frank warned, but Rodrick ignored him. Normally he wouldn't be eating at the table at all, because Manny was sitting not far away on his potty trainer, and the sound of him peeing in the bowl was enough to make anyone lose his lunch.

But pancakes in an all-you-can-eat buffet made Manny's toilet indiscretions more than tolerable.

At least, for Rodrick, but Greg kept making his whiny complaints. "Mom! This is so embarrassing! You need to start cracking down on Manny so we can eat in peace!"

Mrs. Heffley sighed uneasily; she knew her middle son had a point. "Come on, Greg. You know he was making progress until your Uncle had to say what he said."

She was referring to last Christmas, when Greg's Uncle had told Manny that there was a potty monster in the toilet.

"That happened last YEAR!" Greg was exasperated. "He should've BEEN over it!"

"He's right, Mom," snickered Rodrick, shooting a sly grin her way.

Mrs. Heffley raised her eyebrows, coughed loudly, and said to Greg: "So, what's new in school?"

"Not much," said Greg. He was lying; school was actually pretty busy these days. Seventh grade had just started, and there was a new girl in class: Holly Hills. She was a beautiful blonde and from what he could see, she actually wore MAKE-UP.

Greg's dream was to make her his girl, but he was far from alone - nearly every boy in seventh grade had a crush on her. Even BRYCE ANDERSON, the coolest kid in middle school. Then again, it was hard to tell with Bryce; he had a crush on anybody who looked like they could give him popularity points.

Heck, he'd even acted like he had a crush on RODRICK back when they first met and he mistook Rodrick for a very cool, older-than-they-look middle schooler. He dropped the act as soon as he found out Rodrick was in junior high, and therefore no use to him on the popularity scale, but still, that ought to show you how low he could stoop.

In fact, every once in a while, Greg dared to let himself wonder why the heck Bryce was so popular in the first place.

"What about you, Rodrick?" Mrs. Heffley asked. "What's going on in your school?"

Rodrick grunted, his mouth full. "Whatever," he said.

Susan wasn't about to take that as an answer, so he hurriedly swallowed and added: "You know, just ordinary school stuff, I don't know. I don't pay that much attention."

It was no secret that Rodrick hated school and had no intentions of going on to college and leading the "normal, productive" family life. As far as he was concerned, there were way better things to do than slave away in a hot stuffy classroom, sweating over every test and straining to catch what fell from the crusty mouth of some boring schoolmarm or master.

It didn't matter to him if he flunked out of a grade or got suspended._ Hey, whatever you wanna do, school system._ It just left him more free time to do the stuff he really wanted to do.

But it _did _matter to Mr. Heffley, so he'd been "helping" Rodrick with his schoolwork since Rodrick was in 5th grade.

Rodrick would hand him a sheet of paper full of typos and factual errors, and in classic Rodrick style, he'd act like he had no idea why his answers were wrong until his dad would just lose patience and do the work himself.

Still, he and Susan would often get on Rodrick's case, asking him to try harder and shit._ Like you could bend a statue that's been melded to stone._

Even now, Mrs. Heffley rolled her eyes at Rodrick's careless statement, and turned to Frank.

"Rodrick. You know you're in highschool now. When I was your age, I was coming home with straight As and Bs." said Frank.

"Yeah?" said Rodrick. "And look at you - you ain't the six-million-dollar man." He looked at his father and grinned - he knew he'd scored, and Greg and Manny couldn't control their giggles.

His father cleared his throat and rose with dignity. "Thank you for that touching display of philial love, Rodrick. I'd love to hear more, but I've got to head out for work." He had that weird, pinchy expression on his face - he was pissed.

"I don't know what gets into you, Rodrick," said Mrs. Heffley, when Frank had left. "Sometimes I wish I could go back to the days when you were a good little boy. When you had manners, and respect for others, and such a kind heart."

Greg stared at his Mom. "When was that?" he asked, genuinely confused.

Rodrick nearly choked on his pancakes, he was laughing so hard.

"Oh, you two," sighed Mrs. Heffley, affectionately but somewhat sadly patting their heads. "God forbid I ever try to share a feeling."

She was about to go back to the kitchen when Rodrick said something that shocked everybody.


End file.
